PIA 2501
Foreign Aid in the 21st Century
The Issue
Dealing with Donors and Coping with Donor Complexity
Norman Rush: Focus on Foreign Aid and Americans Overseas.
“Official Americans”
Instruments of Seduction”
Review: Who Gives Absolutely?
Where does the Money go?
Who Gives Per capita
The Foreign Aid Apparatus
Foreign aid created two new kinds of professionals, a donor official and a recipient program manager
Donor Officials Represent Their Home Country
The Problem
Program Managers have to work with the international Donor system and represent the LDC country where they work.
The International Donor Regime
Private Foundations vs. Government Donors
Official Development Assistance (ODA)
Bilateral Donors vs. Multilateral Assistance
Multilateral Organizations
United Nations Development Programmme
UN Specialized Agencies:
UNICEF ILO FAO UNESCO
FAO
UN System: Two Types
Funds and Programs- Report to Economic and Social Development Council
Specialized Agencies- Autonomous Boards
Basic Characteristics: UN System
Made up of components of all National Systems
Representative: Voting Reflects LDC majority (Except in Security Council0
Critics: Anarchy
Significant Patronage and Corruption
The World Bank System International Monetary Fund: Bridging
Loan Facility
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development- Infrastructure
International Development Association- Consessional
International Finance Corporation: Commercial Rates
Bank Headquarters- Washington D.C.
Characteristics of World Bank System Block Voting
Dominated by Organization for Economic Construction and Development (OECD)
Debt Forgiveness Issue
Structural Adjustment Vehicle
Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Programs
Regional Banks Asian Development Bank
African Development Bank
Inter-American Development Bank
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
U.S. Agencies U.S. Agency for International Development
Millennium Challenge Corporation
Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator
The President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
State Department of Public Affairs
U.S. Agencies: Agriculture, Commerce, Labor
Defense Department (23% in 2013)
Foreign Aid
The People: 3,700In Government
1. Foreign Service Officer
2. Civil Service Officer
3. Personal Services Contract
4. Contractor/grant officer
PRT volunteers, Foreign Service Officers Glenn Guimond and Angela Gemza, outside the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, formerly the Republican Palace.
Pentagon
The People: Tens of Thousands in the Private and Non-Profit Sector
1. Project Coordinator2. Team Leader3. Contractor4. Grantee/Sub-Grantee5. Home Office Backup6. TDY- in the Field
The Complicated World of the Federal Government
Goal: Hide or avoid restrictions on Personnel Ceilings
Jack Anderson and the “Washington Merry Go Round”
Examine Interagency transfer/Cooperative Agreement as an example
A Case Study
Interagency Cooperation with each other and with for Profit and Non-Profit Sectors
Historical Perspective-2
General Agreement between Other Agencies and USAID
Agreement affirmed new partnership mechanisms to access USDA expertise:
Participating Agency Service Agreements (PASAs)
Resources Support Services Agreements (RSSAs)
The Spirit and Intent of RSSAs and PASAs
Within a USDA/USAID Partnership
Transfers can exist throughout the Federal Government
And between Agencies and Cooperants
Possible Foreign Aid RSSA Cooperants
Commonwealth Legacy
Colonial Development Corporation: 1929
Colombo Plan: 1955-1964
Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation
Department for International Development (DFID)
Commonwealth Donors
Canadian International Development Corporation (CIDA)- Bridges French and English Speaking Countries
Australia- Ausaid (Focus on Asia)
New Zealand Aid
Countries that are both Donors and Recipients
India
China
South Africa
Brazil
Portugal
European Colonial Legacy Ministry for Cooperation,
Development and Francophony
GTZ- German Technical Assistance and German Department of Cooperation and Development
Dutch, Italian and Belgium Technical Assistance
Scandinavia: “Soft Donors”
SIDA- Swedish International Development Association
DANIDA- Danish International Development Association
NORAD- Norwegian Agency for Development Coorporation
FINNAID-Finnish foreign aid and cooperation
Danish International Development Agency
Role of Soviet Block
Soviet Union- 1950s. About 8% of World Foreign Aid
1970s and 1980s- Support for Liberation Movements and Clients
1990s to Present- Became Recipients of Foreign Aid
The Donor System
Soft Vs. Hard Systems
Trade vs. Aid
Debt Reduction/Debt Forgiveness
Governance Reform vs. Interference
Information Technology
Multilateralism vs. Unilateralism
Goals: 2015 Ostensibly, the goals of foreign aid in
2013 remain what they were more than half a century ago. (Humanitarian, Governance and Economic and Social Development
However, Issues and Perceptions have changed and are Changing
Critics (The Dead AID Crowd) Say aid cannot address issues of poverty
Donors and program management
A weak and unstable LDC bureaucracy time and time again would come up against the donor community’s massive pool of well qualified people and complicated bureaucratic process
Donor Priorities
Particularly during the cold war, corrupt countries often seem to receive the lion’s share of foreign aid.
Donor Client relationships part of Dependency patterms
The Problem
Program Managers
Recipients often cannot say no to aid even when the recurrent maintenance revenue requirements cannot be met.
Foreign aid failure rates are disturbing.
Recipients need to say no.
USAID official Jerry Cashion (wearing hat) speaks to the class
Dealing with Donors
1. Understand the Donor Language
2. Understand the Donor’s Documents
3. Understand the Donor’s Rules4. Understand soft as well as
hard donors5. Understand the Sustainability
Problem
Coping with Expatriates
Understand the internal Organizational Imperative
Be Aggressive and a “Hard” Recipient
Understand hidden agendas, Italian Computers, Danish Bacon
Products and Foreign Aid
Qualifications in Mali The project was designed to assist poor
villages excluded most of the villages in Mali. When he asked how many micro-credit loans were available in one Mali village, the response was “None, the village does not qualify.”
In order to qualify for the credit, villages had to have village associations. Only the better off villages, he added, had village associations.
The lesson to be learned from this is that foreign aid often does not assist the poorest of the poor and sometimes makes matters worse for them.
Mali Village
Reference
John Madeley, When Aid is No Help: How Projects Fail and How They Could Succed (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1991).
What does this have to do with Foreign Aid?
Final Thoughts
Discussion
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